June 16th Reflection

The readings for today focused on vocabulary development. I am discussion leader for the Vocabulary Lesson article written by: Camile L.Z. Blachowicz and Peter Fisher. I wasn't surprised with what the research said about students receiving little to no support for vocabulary growth. This is common especially among students in the urban multicultural schools. I have see this first hand with students that come from high-literacy homes have more advanced vocabulary and those from low-literacy homes have little to no vocabulary development. It's really sad because you have students on all sorts of levels and it can be difficult for the teacher, however, research states that high-literacy classrooms may reverse this trend in literacy. So as a future teacher, I have definitely learned that I need to embrace literature in my classroom by using activities, materials, and resources that enable students to play with words. This also allows for exploration of words. I am also big in modeling behaviors for students so I learned that I need to model word learning for students and it would help them to become more intrigued with learning new words. The article also discusses the importance of exposing students to a wide range of literature. When doing my pre-service observation in Elementary schools, I saw this being done in a fourth grade classroom. The students were reading a certain book themselves but then the teacher was reading a book aloud that expanded their vocabulary. It was giving them access to a level of literature that may have been to difficult for them to read independently. The students absolutely loved it and they would really focus on getting their work done in order to be read to by the teacher for 5-10 minutes either before lunch, encore, or going home. I noticed how engaged they were and she also asked them to make predictions on what might happen next in the story. This is something that I really liked and thought that it was pretty easy to incorporate. I also enjoyed reading the other article that gave examples of a kindergarten classroom's circle time and then a fourth grades morning meeting, it was interesting to see the comparisons and the contrast within two completely different grade levels. I was able to observe both grade levels during my pre-service internship this past spring, and I recall seeing this actions occur among the students. Of course, it was the second half of the year so the students were pretty comfortable with one another so their interactions were more engaging. When I was ready the part about the fourth graders, I honestly didn't even understand what some of the words meant. For example, affable or jovial. I myself would have to learn more in-depth descriptive words if I wanted to do this in my classroom. I was also surprised to learn that there are four types of vocabulary, oral, print, receptive, and productive. I thought this part of the article was really important in understanding the multiple dimensions of what vocabulary is and the differenr ways in building vocabulary development. Then when reading the Early Catastrophe article, I wasn't suprised with what the research was saying about children that come from low socioeconomic homes because our programs has really enforced the understanding that these students may not know certain things and may not have the ability to do certain things because of their home life. It's really sad because as teachers we want to limit the gap as much as possible but no matter how hard we try, it may not help every child. Of course, this won't stop me from persuing to change this in my classroom. Just in these readings we are provided tons of ideas that may help conteract the gap and the low vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, we as future teachers shoudln't let statistics or researches keep us from trying our hardest. We can make a difference, even if it's in only one child, that means I have done my job. It's definitely a major challange that we must face on a daily basis and if we are well educated on the best practices/lessons that will help these students, then maybe we can try to lesson the gap. All the readings are really interesting and bring up important, difficult, and challanging issues that teachers have been facing for years and that we will continue to face in the future. I have really enjoyed reading these but I do have to say sometimes its really sad and it makes me think really hard about what I can do to help students dealing with the issues that we've been reading about. It can get discouraging, but then I think about the readings that provide great examples and the in class discussions that are educating us to be effective teachers equipped with the materials and resources available to help our students achieve and then I feel better!